FORMER Ibrox defender and club stalwart Jardine passed away peacefully after an 18-month battle with cancer yesterday and McCoist joined the many tributes which poured in for the Gers great.

Sandy Jardine stood by Ally McCoist and the fans as Rangers faced their darkest hours

SANDY Jardine was brave as a lion on the field, but even braver off it.

Rangers manager Ally McCoist said last night: “He recently told me he was proud to be a Ranger and wanted to be remembered forever as a Ranger. Well Sandy, you will go down in history as one of the greatest of all time.”

Sandy made his first team debut for Rangers at 18 and played at the top level until he was 40.

He won the Cup Winners’ Cup, three league titles, five Scottish Cups and five league cups at Ibrox. There were two trebles, in 1975-76 and 1977-78.

He also earned 38 caps for his country. If the great Danny McGrain hadn’t played in the same position, there would have been many more.

Sandy was football writers’ player of the year twice, in 1975 at Rangers and 1986 at Hearts, and a member of the Scottish Football Hall of Fame.

But for all his triumphs in football, his greatest battle came away from the game he loved.

Sandy lost it last night, aged just 65, but no man ever carried more honour in defeat.

Late in 2012, Sandy went to Ibrox club doctor Paul Jackson with a sore throat that wouldn’t go away. The devastating diagnosis of cancer – not just of the throat but of the liver – quickly followed.

Sandy recalled last year: “Paul spotted I had swollen glands but also noticed another little lump and arranged for it to be checked out.

“I went to a specialist who took a biopsy and within a week he came back with the bad news.”

Within weeks, surgeons removed 80 per cent of Sandy’s liver. He spent 12 days in intensive care, fighting an infection.

After he recovered from the surgery, doctors began to treat the cancer in his throat. The pain left him unable to eat and he had to be fed through a tube for a time.

Medics then found cancer on one of his rib bones. A course of high-intensity radiotherapy followed.

Sandy faced every challenge head on, but he was man enough to admit how tough it was.

He told the Record last year: “The natural thing to think is, ‘Why me?’

“I’d led a very clean life. I played until I was 40 and kept training until I was about 55. The only reason I stopped was because my mum went into a nursing home and I didn’t have the time.

“I never smoked and I hardly drank either.

“I was still very active. Working for Rangers as player liaison officer and living in Edinburgh, I was travelling back and forth six days a week and enjoying my job.

“So to suddenly find you’ve got cancer was a huge shock. The doctors just said I was very unlucky.

“When you get it, you think of it as a death sentence. That was my first thought.

“But when you play at a high level, you toughen up. You’ve got high motivation, you’re single- minded, you’re used to routines and you’re used to making sacrifices.

“When I was going through the treatment, that stood me in good stead.”

SNS/Jeff Holmes

Sandy Jardine faced every challenge head on and kept fighting for the club he loved after his diagnosis

Sandy’s athlete’s body enabled him to withstand the treatment. It left him exhausted though – too weak to even cut the grass without taking a break. But from somewhere, he found the strength to keep fighting for Rangers and their fans.

Sandy had spent much of the year before his diagnosis battling to save the club from the financial catastrophe that had engulfed them.

And despite his illness, he remained a proud champion of Rangers’ traditions and supporters.

Throughout the club’s slide into administration and the bitter struggle for control that followed, Sandy was a tower of strength for McCoist and a powerful voice for the fans.

Alex MacDonald, his close friend and colleague at both Ibrox and Tynecastle, said: “He’s the one who stood up during very difficult times for the club. He’s the man.”

The fans loved Sandy in return. After news of his cancer emerged, they burst into applause two minutes into every home game in honour of the number he wore in his playing days.

He never forgot their “awesome” support, or the more than 1000 letters from well-wishers on both sides of the Old Firm divide.

“My wife kept all the letters and I’ve read every one of them,” he said.

“There were hundreds and hundreds but I just don’t have the energy yet to reply.

“I’ve had so many inspiring letters. I got a tremendous one from Peter Lawwell at Celtic, which was a really nice touch.”

Like the true gentleman he was, Sandy was unstinting in his praise of the doctors, nurses and staff at the Western General in Edinburgh, and for the staff at Maggie’s Centre who helped him cope with his illness.

And even as he battled for his life, he found time for his friends. When Alex had his Cup Winners’ Cup medal stolen by a mugger in Benidorm, it was Sandy who arranged for it to be replaced.

One of Sandy’s biggest dreams was to get back to Ibrox. He made it at the start of this season, when he proudly unfurled the Division Three championship flag last August, and he remained a fixture at home games until his illness became too much.

To the end, Sandy remained a loving husband to Shona, proud dad to Steven and Nicola and a doting grandfather. His family were around him when he died peacefully.

Rangers said they had lost “a man of dignity, class and honour”, and McCoist called him “a truly remarkable human being”.

The manager added: “He was respected not only by Rangers fans but also the wider football community and he is a huge loss to the game. We will never see his like again in the modern era.”

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